1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a guide arrangement to guide a movement of a transport member to convey products in a conveying direction on a conveying section, for example an endlessly circulating section, having a shape that is predetermined by the guide arrangement. The invention furthermore relates to interdependent uses of the guide arrangement and the transport member for conveying printed products and other transportable products.
2. Prior Art
A conveying device operating with the aid of a conveying chain, which circulates continuously and is guided with the aid of a suitable guide arrangement along a conveying section, for example preferably an endless conveying section, are used for transporting printed products between individual processing stations such as inserters, addressing machines, glue applicators and the like. In the process, the printed products are normally held by grippers and/or clamps mounted on the chain links and, if applicable, are released by these grippers at the processing stations. To ensure a continuous operation, the conveying chain is normally driven continuously circulating along the conveying section which is predetermined by the guide arrangement. The conveying section generally comprises straight and curved segments, wherein the curved segments can be arranged within a horizontal plane, a vertical plane or a plane extending at an angle upward or downward. The guide arrangement must therefore also have corresponding straight-line as well as curved guide elements which determine the curved areas of the conveying section.
The conveying section can extend over a length of 100 m or more and, in the process, can extend through the complete production space in the horizontal and vertical directions. For that reason, the guide arrangement which functions to preset the conveying section cannot be produced as a single piece, but must be composed of individual guide elements which are joined with the aid of suitable connecting arrangements.
These types of guide arrangements are described, for example, in International Patent Publication Nos. WO99/33731, WO99/33722, WO99/33732 and WO99/33730 and European Patent document EP 1 029 815 A1. During the assembly of the known guide arrangements, the individual guide elements are normally joined along the end faces and are then fixedly connected to each other with the aid of clamping devices that engage in the side walls of the guide elements which, in turn, are connected to each other via connecting elements taking the form of bolts or the like.
During the assembly of the guide arrangements, attention must be paid to ensure that the guiding surfaces of the guide elements which serve to guide the movement of the conveying chain directly transition to each other smoothly adjoining, so as to ensure a low noise and low wear operation of the conveying device comprising the guide arrangement and the conveying chain. In many cases, this requirement relating to the transitions between the guide elements requires a secondary treatment of the transition areas, such as a grinding treatment. However, even after such an additional treatment, a non-quiet movement of the conveying chain along the guide arrangement is still observed in some cases.